Heidi Zuckerman Jacobson knows how to make a lot out of a little.
The director and chief curator of the Aspen Art Museum has put together a compact exhibition that is small in scale but not short on ambition.
She has zeroed in on a fascinating mini-trend: Younger sculptors who see drawing (not preparatory takes so much as complete, standalone works) as an important counterpart to their principal medium.
The resulting exhibition, a group of 33 works by nine internationally acclaimed artists, is simply and aptly titled “Sculptors Drawing.” It runs through Oct. 14 and is accompanied by a handsome 48-page catalog.
Jacobson freely admits that the choices of artists are highly personal, all ones with which she has worked in some previous capacity, including organizing solo shows devoted to six of them at the Berkeley (Calif.) Art Museum.
“This exhibition is subsequently as much about the individual artists’ practices as it is about my long-standing relationships to, and with, each,” she writes in her introductory acknowledgments.
There is certainly precedent for sculptors working in other media. Richard Serra, an American old master, has built a body of original prints over his long career that is not as important as his three-dimensional work but certainly substantial in its own right.
While these prints (shown at the Robischon Gallery) complement and in some ways amplify his muscular steel sculpture, they nonetheless stand alone as works of art. And much the same can be said for the drawings in this exhibition by a newer generation of artists born from 1959 through 1974.
“Although often thought to be used by sculptors for preparatory purposes, this exhibition situates drawing as a primary mode of expression and investigation,” Jacobson writes.
Perhaps most refreshing about this exhibition is the realization that these artists actually can draw. That might sound strange, but with the rise of conceptualism in recent decades, the notion of a drawing class in some art schools was considered laughably passé.
What has too often passed for drawings were what might be better described as anti-drawings, crude scratchings on paper. While such rough works could be powerful, as certain artists proved, too often they were what they looked like, meaningless scrawls.
For people who know Matthew Barney (probably the most prominent name among the nine participants) only through “The Cremaster Cycle” of films, the biggest surprise might be his small, and, let it be said, virtuosic drawing, “ENVELOPA: Drawing Restraint 7: ACHILLES” (1992).
In this enigmatic, absorbing depiction of what appears to a dead animal, he has deployed a mix of ink and acrylic with zesty, sure-handed virtuosity, mounting it in a rubbery-looking frame that was made from apparently solidified Vaseline.
Although Jorge Pardo’s sculptures typically relate in some way to domestic furnishings, his drawings look like contemporary takes on color-field painting. Using Pantone ink on vellum, he creates saturated abstractions with exquisite, liquidy-looking blurs of color.
Other standouts include Ricky Swallow’s evocatively titled “A Sad but Very Discreet Recollection of Beloved Beings and Beloved Things” (2005), a set of 10 haunting watercolors with a somber Day of the Dead sensibility.
If there is a knock against this exhibition, it is the lack of any images of the sculptors’ sculpture. It cannot be assumed that all viewers possess a working familiarity with these artist’s principal output.
Because these drawings inevitably relate however directly or indirectly to each of these artists’ three-dimensional works, it would be helpful to make a visual connection, at least in the catalog if nowhere else.
That said, “Sculptors Drawing” is a strong, well-focused offering, the latest in the consistently high-quality stream of exhibitions being produced under Jacobson’s leadership.
Fine arts critic Kyle MacMillan can be reached at 303-954-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com.
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“Sculptors Drawing”
ART EXHIBITION|Exhibition of drawings by nine internationally acclaimed sculptors|
Aspen Art Museum, 590 N. Mill St.|$5, $3 STUDENTS/SENIORS; FREE FOR MEMBERS AND CHILDREN; FREE ON FRIDAYS|10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays (till 7 p.m. on Thursdays) and noon to 6 p.m. Sundays; through Oct. 14; 970-925-8050 or
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